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Nina’s introduction is always just as good as Bernie’s speech. If you skip over it in the above video, I encourage you to give it a watch!

Spreading ‘Like Wildfire’: Majority of Americans—Including 74% of Democrats—Now Support Single-Payer

“Five years ago, could you have believed that half of Americans would agree we need a single-payer healthcare system?”

That’s how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—a longtime advocate of guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans—responded to a new poll that found that 74 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of all adults surveyed support implementing a single-payer healthcare system in the United States.

“When people see the justice of an idea, it spreads like wildfire,” Sanders tweeted Thursday morning. “The American people know that healthcare should be a right.”

The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll asked: “Do you support or oppose having a national health plan—or a single-payer plan—in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan?” More than half said they support it:

The results align with other polls conducted within the past year. In September, as Common Dreams reported, 49 percent of all voters and two-thirds of Democrats surveyed by Politico/Morning Consult said they supported “a single-payer healthcare system.” A KFF poll from July found that 53 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly favor a single-payer plan.

The growing public support for a single-payer system has coincided with action in Congress. Backed by medical professionals, activists, business leaders, and a “groundbreaking ” number of Democratic senators, last September Sanders introduced a Medicare for All bill that would transition the nation’s current for-profit healthcare system toward a single-payer one.

Ahead of the 2018 midterm election and amid mounting demands from the American public that federal lawmakers sign on to Sanders’s bill, studies and political analysts are finding that support for Medicare for All is a politically viable and increasingly popular stance among candidates.

Spotlight: Senator Bernie Sanders and American Politics

During the 2016 presidential election, a lot of buzz circled around Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who held a large fan base of millennials. Many people, including the news media, claim Senator Sanders is ‘redefining’ American politics.

Bernie Sanders is well known for his democratic and socialist beliefs. What many do not know, though, is that Senator Sanders is registered as an Independent, so he sponsors and co-sponsors several bipartisan bills. Many of these bills regard important foreign relations and assistance because part of Senator Sander’s campaign is compassion for others and human rights.

Senator Sanders co-sponsored the following three bills which have been introduced into legislation, and that exemplify his concern for foreign assistance and human rights on a global scale.

I’ve never been to/heard of this website/magazine but giving it a glance it looks like it could be of interest to some of you.

Sanders slams Trump’s proposal to rejoin Trans-Pacific Partnership

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) issued the following statement Thursday after President Donald Trump said Thursday morning that he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he pulled out of immediately after becoming president:

“In a series of broken promises President Trump made to the working people of this country, rejoining the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the biggest yet.

“Joining the TPP would not bring back one American job that has been outsourced to China. Instead, it would force more American workers to compete with desperate workers in Vietnam who make 65 cents an hour and migrant computer workers in Malaysia who are working as modern day slaves. It is bad enough to force U.S. workers to compete with low-wage labor; they should not be forced to compete with no-wage labor.

“Trump talks tough on trade, but the reality is that since he has been president our trade deficits with China and Mexico have gone up by more than $35 billion. The Trump Administration is still providing multi-billion dollar federal contracts to some of the largest outsourcers in America. And Trump’s tax plan is giving a massive tax break to companies that ship jobs overseas.

“We need to fundamentally rewrite our trade policies to benefit American workers, not just the CEOs of large, multi-national corporations. Rejoining the TPP would be a betrayal of American workers, and a step in the wrong direction.”

12 U.S. senators seek FCC probe of Sinclair news scripts, pause in Tribune review

Twelve U.S. senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group for “deliberately distorting news” and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co.

Sinclair, which is already the largest U.S. broadcast station owner, announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune’s 42 TV stations in 33 markets, extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.

In a letter, the senators, 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders, expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclair-owned stations around the country being forced to read company-mandated scripts. The scripts criticized “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country” and have drawn fire.

“We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws,” the senators wrote. They added that it “may have violated the FCC’s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging, slanting, or falsifying information.”

Democrats get tips on selling progressive points in conservative areas

Rep. Paul Gosar, D-Prescott, has never won less than 66 percent of the vote in Arizona’s 4th District, but that doesn’t mean potential challenger David Brill plans to back down from his Democratic principles.

“We all want to see backbone,” said Brill, who is running in the Democratic primary in the 4th District. “Whether you agree on every value or every issue, of course not … but, yes, you want to see backbone.”

Brill was one of more than 400 candidates in Washington for Progressive Change Campaign Committee training on how to sell a progressive message to the voters in conservative districts.

The mantra of the day was “any blue just won’t do” and the event – which boasted speakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts – said the path for Democratic victory in conservative districts is to embrace progressive values and positions, not hide from them.

Cathy Myers — IronStache’s Democratic challenger in Paul Ryan’s district — makes the case for why she can win

In the race for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District, one Democratic candidate has gotten a lot of national attention. But there’s another Democrat in the race: Cathy Myers, though lower profile, is running a serious campaign.

Myers is a school board member and part-time teacher from Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. She’s running a tough race against fellow Democratic candidate Randy Bryce, the ironworker and union organizer who goes by “IronStache.”

Bryce has taken up most of the political oxygen in the Democratic race so far; he received an early round of endorsements from Bernie Sanders and other progressive groups, and national Democrats followed — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added Bryce to its “red to blue” list. And he’s fundraised millions so far, putting him in a good position to take over whichever Republican emerges from the primary to replace Ryan, who announced Wednesday that he’s retiring at the end of his term.

But Myers is undeterred.

“I feel my chances are good,” she told me as she drove to Milwaukee after finishing a day of teaching. “My goodness, I went up against Paul Ryan with a guy that had $10 to $11 million sitting in the bank; he could write a check for it at any given time. That didn’t faze me, so why should any of Randy’s fundraising faze me?”

The fact that Ryan is leaving the race could pose a new opportunity for Myers. Bryce has spent much of the campaign attacking Ryan as the leader of the GOP’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass massive tax cuts. With Ryan retiring and Republicans scrambling to replace him, it could give Myers more of a chance to get her own message out.

What you need to know about Beto O’Rourke

Although Beto O’Rourke has served in Congress since 2012, few people outside of his hometown of El Paso knew who he was before he decided to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

Since then, the Democrat has been visiting every corner of the state to campaign. He’s working to visit all 254 counties in Texas, and is on his way to visiting almost as many Whataburger restaurants, his fast food joint of choice while he’s on the road.

He’s hoping to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1994, when Bob Bullock was re-elected as lieutenant governor, and has shared his entire journey with followers on Facebook, using the social media company’s live video service. It lets him host town halls on the road or share moments from behind the scenes of his campaign.

His unconventional style has made waves and he says it helps him connect with voters on a personal level. He hasn’t hired a political consultant or a pollster and he doesn’t accept money from political action committees.
There’s still a lot you probably don’t know about O’Rourke. Here’s a look at his political background, dietary preferences and stance on key issues.

The Arizona Supreme Court recently took away in-state tuition for DACA students, so young people like Fernando are struggling to figure out how to stay in school. This should not be happening in the United States of America. pic.twitter.com/rhDjY4F7G8

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 12, 2018

It’s outrageous that the FBI is reportedly surveilling people they call "Black Identity Extremists." It's a disgraceful continuation of the FBI's history of spying on activists, especially people of color, fighting for social, racial and economic justice. https://t.co/LEG902UdeA

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 12, 2018

For months, calls to shut down Line 5 were ignored. Now that disaster is close, Lansing is waking up. We can’t live in a world where a ship anchor decides the future of our Great Lakes. Clean water should be our priority from the start. #ShutDownLine5 https://t.co/W6Oga9bp32

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) April 12, 2018

Checking in with the 2018 gubernatorial candidates: Abdul El-Sayed (18 min. audio @ link)

This week, Stateside is interviewing the Democratic candidates for governor ahead of their party’s 2018 State Endorsement Convention. The gubernatorial candidates will face off in the August primaries.

Abdul El-Sayed is the former director of the Detroit Health Department. His campaign has been a little bumpy – late last month, he asked a court to rule if he’s eligible to run after some elections law experts claimed he might not be.

He sat down with Stateside’s Cynthia Canty to discuss his experiences at the Detroit Health Department and his stance on a variety of issues.

Mike Duggan blasts Abdul El-Sayed for accusing him of ‘poisoning kids’

The feud exploded on Wednesday, when El-Sayed went on Michigan Radio and said Duggan ignored his warnings to mitigate the health risks of city housing demolitions and water shutoffs.

“He didn’t want to pay attention to the fact that Detroit’s demolitions program is poisoning kids with lead up until this year,” El-Sayed told Michigan Radio.

Duggan endorsed Whitmer last month after working with union leaders to recruit another candidate into the race. This week, the mayor’s office released a batch of emails El-Sayed wrote to demolitions officials while he was at the city that the mayor’s aides claim refutes the doctor’s assertions.

“It’s clear Abdul has completed his transition from man of science to politician because he’s willing to say anything to get himself elected,” Duggan spokesman John Roach told Bridge Magazine.

Bridge received the emails – more than 250 pages in all – after reporting on the demolition issue last fall. Bridge secured the communications through the Freedom of Information Act after previous reporting on studies showing a link between elevated blood lead levels among Detroit children and increased housing demolitions.

No one disputes that, while he was at the city, El-Sayed initiated a study that found the link and launched a task force to address the problem. But he and Duggan disagree on whether City Hall resisted El-Sayed’s efforts.

Under El-Sayed, the task force made 18 recommendations on how to reduce the health risk, many of which languished for months until last fall when the city rolled out a text messaging service to alert nearby residents of upcoming demolitions to stay inside.

‘Should Be a No-Brainer’: Progressives Urge Democrats to Muster Guts to Block Pompeo

As President Donald Trump’s torture-supporting secretary of state pick Mike Pompeo testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday—amid a flood of opposition from anti-war groups, environmentalists, and LGBTQ rights organizations—commentators and activists have argued that the only remaining question is whether Democrats will follow the lead of progressive activists and block Pompeo, or ignore their base and rubber-stamp yet another disastrous Trump nominee.

Writing ahead of Pompeo’s Senate hearing on Wednesday, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim noted that the GOP only holds a one-member advantage in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and “with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) having already announced his opposition, that means a united Democratic front could reject Pompeo in committee.”

It will not be the first time Senate Democrats have been forced to vote on whether Pompeo—a “committed Islamophobe,” climate denier, and war hawk—should head one of the government’s most prominent departments.

Last year, 14 Democrats—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)—joined every Republican except Paul in voting to confirm Pompeo as CIA chief.

At least one Democrat who voted to confirm Pompeo last year, Sen. Brian Shatz (D-Hawaii), has admitted he was wrong to do so and vowed to oppose him this time around, citing his “alarming tendency towards military provocation and brinkmanship.”

Ultimately, Grim argues, the best way for Democrats to block Pompeo’s confirmation may be to ensure he is voted down in committee, which will require every Democrat to vote no.

Warning Against Attack on Syria, Carter Hopes Trump Realizes Nuclear War ‘Catastrophe for All Human Beings’

Former President Jimmy Carter has added his voice to those urging President Donald Trump to refrain from launching an illegal military attack on Syria, warning of the serious dangers—including nuclear conflagration—that could result.

“I pray that he would keep our country at peace and not exaggerate or exacerbate the challenges that come up with North Korea, in Russia, or in Syria,” Carter told The Associated Press about Trump’s recent threats.

“I hope he realizes very profoundly as I did, and as other presidents have done,” Carter continued, “that any nuclear exchange could involve catastrophe for all human beings.”

Carter pointed out that even a military attack that doesn’t escalate into a nuclear exchange “is a dangerous thing” that can unleash unpredictable consequences.

Elizabeth Warren and Mick Mulvaney Clash Over a Neutered CFPB

ick Mulvaney, the director of the Office and Management and Budget, who is also moonlighting as a financial regulator, has literally decided to demote the “Consumer” in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In public communications he now calls it the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, formalizing it in the new cookie-cutter seal. And failing to put consumers first has been a trend for Mulvaney.

The Associated Press reported this week that the CFPB, or BCFP (actually, there’s no way I’m calling it that), has not recorded one enforcement action in the 135 days since Mulvaney took over last November. As Sherrod Brown, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in Mulvaney’s semi-annual report to Congress Thursday, the number of enforcement actions on his watch are actually negative four, because the agency “has withdrawn lawsuits against four payday lenders that charge consumers triple-digit interest rates.”

Under previous director Richard Cordray, the CFPB would send reporters a press release practically every week announcing some enforcement action against a bank or credit-card company or debt collector. It returned $12 billion to consumers who were wronged in their financial transactions. Today, Mulvaney has frosted the glass of his office windows so nobody can see that he’s doing nothing inside.

In testimony to Congress this week, Mulvaney absurdly tried to take credit for returning $92 million to consumers, even though this involved only cases that existed before he got there. He also tried to claim that Cordray didn’t start any enforcement actions in his first six months as director, which is a flat-out lie.

What we have here is repeal by neglect.

Teacher Strikes Are About a Lot More Than Paychecks

Teachers across the United States are having a moment.

Educators are building on the momentum from West Virginia, where striking teachers won a 5 percent pay raise for state employees. Now the protests have spread to Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and the nation’s capital.

The educators are winning broad public support, but some politicians aren’t pleased.

Teachers are displaying a “thug mentality,” Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin complained. They’re asking for too much, like a “teenager wanting a better car,” according to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin.

Is it really “selfish and short-sighted,” as Bevin put it, to demand a livable wage?

Teachers have long lived on austerity salaries while seeing their benefits, from pensions to health care, come under attack. They make less than other college graduates in all 50 states, and they’re more likely than other workers to hold a second job.

But better pay isn’t all that’s compelling educators to act. Teachers are using the classroom to fight for their entire communities.

In Kentucky, teachers had to protest to save a critical social service program, which nearly fell victim to state tax cuts for the wealthy.

Politicians in Oklahoma spent years following the same path, slashing taxes for oil and gas companies while letting schools suffer. Thousands of Oklahomans have shared now-viral photos of the battered textbooks used by the state’s students.

Revealed: Secret rightwing strategy to discredit teacher strikes

A nationwide network of rightwing thinktanks is launching a PR counteroffensive against the teachers’ strikes that are sweeping the country, circulating a “messaging guide” for anti-union activists that portrays the walkouts as harmful to low-income parents and their children.

The new rightwing strategy to discredit the strikes that have erupted in protest against cuts in education funding and poor teacher pay is contained in a three-page document obtained by the Guardian. Titled “How to talk about teacher strikes”, it provides a “dos and don’ts” manual for how to smear the strikers.

Top of the list of talking points is the claim that “teacher strikes hurt kids and low-income families”. It advises anti-union campaigners to argue that “it’s unfortunate that teachers are protesting low wages by punishing other low-wage parents and their children.”

The “messaging guide” is the brainchild of the State Policy Network (SPN), an alliance of 66 rightwing “ideas factories” that span every state in the nation. SPN uses its $80m war chest – funded by billionaire super-donors such as the Koch brothers and the Walton Family Foundation that flows from the Walmart fortune – to coordinate conservative strategy across the country.

Another financial backer of SPN is the billionaire DeVos family of the Amway empire. Betsy DeVos is the current education secretary in the Trump administration.

SPN’s previous campaigns have included a plan to “defund and defang” public sector unions. Now it is turning its firepower on the striking teachers.

Trump convenes task force to study finances of the US post office

Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing a task force to study the finances of the United States Postal System.

The order does not specifically mention online shopping giant Amazon but Trump has complained that the company’s deal with the USPS is a money loser for the service. Trump has become railing against the company and its owner, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, in recent weeks.

The task force will be assigned to study such factors as pricing in the package delivery market. It will have 120 days to submit a report with its recommendations.

The Washington swamp just got a little dirtier. The Senate just voted to confirm former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to be second in command at the @EPA. Now he could work to poison the agency – and the environment he's supposed to protect – for years to come.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 13, 2018

Bernie alum Sarah Ford (fmr National Press Secretary) joins team @CynthiaNixon as communications director. (Sarah always saved my butt in the craziest moments of the Bernie campaign!) pic.twitter.com/WV5MKq0cvR

— Nomiki Konst🌹 (@NomikiKonst) April 13, 2018

Now that public opinion has shifted on marijuana, rich white men like Boehner and companies like Monsanto are trying to cash in. We can’t let them rake in profits while thousands of people, mostly people of color, continue to sit in jail for possession and use.

— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) April 12, 2018

In Canada’s Wild West, Pipeline Politics Pay No Heed to the Law

British Columbia Premier John Horgan, who has vowed to use every possible means to thwart a Kinder Morgan Inc. pipeline expansion, was told by legal advisers last year before taking power that blocking the project would be against the law.

That hasn’t stopped the 58-year-old former pulp mill worker from digging in his heels to stop the C$7.4 billion ($5.9 billion) Trans Mountain expansion project, sparking a national uproar and drawing sharp rebukes from his counterparts in oil-rich Alberta and the federal government .

Houston-based Kinder Morgan threatened over the weekend to walk away from the project that was approved by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016. That prospect has catapulted the contentious expansion into a symbol of fragile national unity as critics call B.C.’s obstruction of a federally sanctioned project an assault on Canada’s political system and the rule of law.

“Failure is not an option,” Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in Toronto Thursday, saying the federal government is in talks with Kinder Morgan about using the tools at its disposal to ensure the project is built.

Regulatory board cracks open door for more review of pipeline projects

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality decided a year ago to cede its authority to review the hundreds of spots where two controversial natural gas pipelines will cross state waterways to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Opponents of the projects have hounded the agency about that decision ever since.

However, with the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines advancing rapidly toward construction, the State Water Control Board cracked open the door for more review of those water crossings. The board on Thursday approved a 30-day period to solicit comment on whether the approvals the corps granted for the projects under Nationwide Permit 12 are adequate to protect Virginia waterways from the blasting, drilling and trenching that crossing them could entail.

Board member Robert Wayland, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, was leading a push for a meeting and public hearing on whether the corps permit adequately protects Virginia waters. Opponents have derided the corps permit as a “blanket” approval and contend it allows degradation of waterways, such as loss of recreational uses, that state water regulations do not permit.

“I watched the nationwide permit scope get significantly ratcheted down over a period of time,” Wayland said. “Quite frankly, we felt, and the Army agreed, it had been ‘Honk if you want a permit.’”

FERC issues notice for Atlantic Coast Pipeline construction to commence

Mountain Valley Pipeline tension rises

Yellow tape and workers with nothing to do surround the makeshift treehouse of a 61-year-old protester called Red.

She and her supporters continue to fight against the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“These county policemen here, I pay taxes and I am paying for them to stand around here and protect these guys cutting trees. That’s not right,” said protester Carl Bagby.

Just a couple of feet below Red, Mountain Valley Pipeline crews began to cut smaller branches while protesters stood in their campout, in disbelief.

Local farmer and wetland scientist David Treble said the greatest concern is that could contaminate groundwater since everyone on the mountain relies on well water.

“When you have this pipeline coming through, it actually is parallel to this creek. Anytime you have rain, the pipeline is coated in this really nasty material to prevent it from corroding and it will leech that material into the groundwater and right into the creek,” Treble said.

Tensions began to rise as the crews moved closer to Red. Protesters were forced to move from their sit-in for safety reasons and were advised to stay at least 160 feet away from the cutting.

A MASSIVE PIPELINE IS BEING PLANNED IN OREGON. BUT LOCAL LANDOWNERS WON’T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT

A proposed natural gas pipeline is uniting Oregonians across the political spectrum.